President Bush did the right thing. Tomorrow at dawn, U.S. troops will intervene in Somalia, a country devastated by civil war and drought.

Food and medical supplies will finally arrive where they are needed. This intervention, Operation Restore Hope, will go down in the history books as humanitarian, and Bush will be looked at as a president with a big heart. But . . .

That's just the problem. The Somali situation is filled with buts, whys and what ifs.

-- But what are the military's objectives?

Without clearly stated military objectives, the American public does not know what to expect, whether it be the number of U.S. casualties or the length of deployment. The U.S. government should be able to be honest with the American public. This is just a humanitarian mission, right?

-- Why aren't other United Nations or NATO countries sending substantial amounts of troops or supplies?

Once again, it looks as if the U.S. is left policing the world, with just enough foreign troops to call it a U.N. action. For this action to be considered a truly united effort, more nations must pitch in, be it with logistics, troops, or as is the case with the "checkbook" diplomats -- Japan and Germany -- by sending money.

-- What does the military do when the objectives are met?

The United States cannot afford to have its military bogged down in western Africa for several years playing babysitter. Once Somalia is under control, U.N. peace keepers must replace the U.S. troops.

-- What if the "Somali bandits" are better equipped and more experienced than expected?

Can the American public accept heavier casualties in Somalia than we had in Desert Storm? The public must realize that this will not be a cakewalk, and that along with medical supplies, guns, tanks and ammunition, the military will also be taking body bags with them to Somalia. War is war, whether it be with a highly trained Iraqi Republican Guard or a hungry and desperate Somali teen-ager.

Finally . . . the Western world should remember that, once again, it is fixing a problem it created. In the past, the U.S. invaded Panama to take care of a leader once on the C.I.A. payroll. And even more recently, the Western world invaded Iraq to take care of a nation it helped arm. . .

Now we have to "fix" a problem white colonialists created when they carved boundaries in the sand -- without thinking of African ethnic groups -- and the U.S. and the Soviet Union created by arming the nation over the past 20 years.

The proverbial chicken has come home to roost.